Tag: Writing

It may seem strange to write of writing – but then again: What better way to reflect on the matter?

What does it mean to write? Why does one even do it? What can writing be useful for? And why is K-M Skalkenæs (in particular) doing that?

It has evolved into a fairly common theme in her poetry over time, as it neatly fits every instance of doubt or questioning the goals of her production. These are self-reflective poems, useful to consider the impact of writing, and the impulses that lead someone to write in the first place.

This collection willed itself into being at a time when I was planning an entirely different writing project, and stayed strong throughout the changes and/or demise of that and other projects I was doing on the side. I never planned it. It willed itself into being.

I won’t deny that it is essentially one long ode to depression. That should be fairly obvious to you if you made it this far. It reflects my state of mind fairly well I’d say. And that should kind of also explain why the writing of the collection became such a pressing matter that it pushed all other things aside.

So, well, here it is! An intermission of a poetry collection. Written over a six month period of recuperation and recharging. The first poems (not counting the older ones that snuck their way in) were written in the immediate aftermath of my grandfather’s death, but didn’t fit into my last poetry collection which I were publishing at the time. The newest poems are rounding up everything, just barely making it over the finishing line at the eleventh hour. And now I can write no more of it. The theme is exhausted. Not because there is nothing more to say. Just because my situation has changed, and the sadness and loneliness that fueled the poems no longer extant in my life. Thus, it is done.

The timing – with regards to this collection – could not be better. It closes a chapter for me, so that I can now allow myself to face squarely forwards.

This is the end. I hope you got something out of the reading – at least remotely resembling how much I got out of the writing.

What is the greatest source of inspiration?What can really make you contemplateand urge you forward to complete something?

Well, if you’re happy and contentyou might never see the pointof changing anything,right?

You cannot know the lightif that is all you’ve ever seen –you will not understand itor appreciate it’s thereuntil you have lived through a night –

—

And what a night. I don’t plan to moralize, but I do plan to speak my mind. I lived through a night like I hope you’ll never have to. And you probably won’t have to. Most people don’t. I was just the one out of thousands who drew the shortest straw. And then I was stuck in a nightmare that lasted 25 years. A long, drawn-out sleep that left me with nothing in store and everything to rebuild.

But I did have one thing through that time. One thing that carried and supported me. And that was poetry. If I had lived a happy life, I don’t think I’d ever have started to write. I don’t think I would’ve seen the point, since I would’ve lacked nothing.

As it was, I lacked – not only material things – I lacked a voice and words to express my thoughts. I lacked expression. And humans are social beings. We have an innate need for words and speech, but I had no words and weren’t heard when I tried to speak. So I wrote. Everything I couldn’t say out loud I wrote – poem after poem, essay after essay – and found a voice along the way that seeped out into my everyday existence and coloured what I’d do and say.

It’s been an amazing journey, but if I’d never had problems, I probably wouldn’t have wanted to move along the way – I’d probably just have wanted to stay where I was at the beginning. Don’t fix what isn’t broken, right?

I have no regrets – I chose a path that advanced me, however slowly, towards an understanding of my abilities, and what I truly wanted at heart. It just so happens, that at the end of the road, what I wanted was to continue writing, since I had not yet nearly told everything I had to tell. And since I had come to be able to write fairly well, there seemed to be no reason to stop at all.

—

What is this stupid constructthe world calls happiness?A soothing balmto keep you in your place.

I’d rather feel the pain,the sadness and the coldthe world too has to offerinstead of growing oldto see that I learned nothingbecause I was content –who on this Earth would trulywant that to be their end?

—

Whenever I was at my lowest, no matter the circumstances, I always felt the urge to write. Mostly because no other solution was in sight. But that was what kept me going, and it was a sure and reliable guide to have at hand throughout that long and lonely night that was the uncertain stumbling steps I took towards the light.

And the worse I felt, the better I wrote. Paradoxically. That’s how it goes.

I would write,I would write but I am tired and the words don’t come –perhaps tomorrowor any other day but today.But if I say that every dayI may never get to write againand that thought is so scarythat I try – at least try –

Because what else would I do?How else would I express myself?I would explode eventuallywith all those words inside methat cannot make their way outunless I write them downand hand them to you.

So I write –so I try to writeand whatever comes of itat least I tried,I did.

One could write of the future.
It’s just so hard.
Because you then accept in advance
that everything you write
has a built-in expiration date.
Since the date of your choice one day
will no longer be in the future.

One could also write of the past.
That’s even harder.
How much hasn’t been forgotten or altered
and how much isn’t altered
further
with every weighted word
written or spoken of times we haven’t lived through
and therefore don’t understand.

One could also write of the present.
But what is the present?
Isn’t it past already
once the reader picks up your book?
And how much do we actually notice
while it happens
rather than through
later reflections?

One could also just stop caring
about time.
Just write the time off.
Literally.
It passes anyway
no matter what.

How about writing about something I know?
Something I care about?
How about not caring in advance whether the reader understands
or wants to understand
or whether or not it even matters?
How about settling for the idea
that everything matters
and that if I write about something that is
meaningful to me, heartfelt and genuine
that will shine through
and make every word count all the more?
What if I’m wrong…?
But what if I’m right!

How about writing about Lolland.
That’s the island I come from.
Why have I never written about it before?
Well, I have,
but never mentioned the name.
What if giving it its proper name
alienates certain readers
or makes the text less universal
(as if a text ever can be universal)
or makes it more difficult to relate to
or something like that?
But what if it doesn’t!

What if you try to write something universal
and end up with something insipid and vague
that nobody could possibly care for.
Why not write something personal?
Why not write of my home?
As if other people don’t have a home
and wouldn’t understand what it feels like
to long back to it.

Why even pretend that there is a difference
between the personal and the universal –

I want to write about Lolland.
It is an island in the south of Denmark.
It has 60.000 inhabitants.
It is very flat and fertile.

It is my home.

I don’t live there.
I haven’t lived there for ten years now.
It changes nothing.

I want to write something beautiful.
I want to write something meaningful.
And perhaps that’s the entire problem.
Perhaps that’s why I never get to write
nearly as much as I think about writing.
Reality is just not that pretty.
And why write something
that doesn’t either reflect reality
or could become reality?

Perhaps keeping it real isn’t as boring as I used to think –
perhaps it’s the only way to get to say something
that is truly worthwhile
and could possibly stand the test of time.

I want to write about Lolland
because that’s where my heart is on most days.
Not about the beaches,
the dikes and the hills
or the lakes and the fjords.
Not per se at least.
But about the feeling of complete disconnect
from the rest of the world
caused by intense connection
with one single place
that assaults me
whenever I go there.

I will not use the phrase “go home”
because that’s too emotional
even for me.
I “go there” every once in awhile
to visit my family
and breathe that air
and walk that earth
for no particular reason.
At least no logical reason.
And so I cannot really describe it
because my mind is so
terribly logical
that it wants a logical reason
and balks at the lack of one.

I want to believe
that I could create something
that could last beyond my years.
I know however
how unlikely
that would be.

I “go there” every once in awhile
and the streets remain the same
but the houses change
or disappear entirely
and people come and go,
locations change names –
the only constant there is
that I can always find
is the brooding barrows,
ruins, stones
that reminisce a past
we don’t even remember;
something gone,
something didn’t last
again.
And here I am,
presumptuously,
whining about the human want
to last – and last – and last –
to leave a mark,
to make a mark,
to be remembered…
As if it matters in the long run
who reads me once I’m gone.

My biggest wish for the future
is that everybody would stop
pretending that they are perfect
when they all know they’re not.

My perfect scenario being
universal honesty
about our faults and fears
and vulnerability.

But since everybody else
seem too afraid to do it,
I’ll set an example myself;
just this to get started with:

—

I have a crippling fear of writing.
Say what?
Yes, I do!
Actually, it doesn’t have much to do with writing
but a lot to do with finding the right words to speak my mind
so that others can understand it –
now, that’s a challenge!

And it’s not that I ought to care if I get it wrong
since I don’t know the reader –
but if they were to misunderstand
and comment on it –
now, that’s where the fear comes in
since I don’t have the energy
for arguments
or even just
for civil discussions –
really, I don’t have much energy for talking
at all.

My energy needs to be carefully doled out on
worthy pursuits
rather than wasted on random things.
(Other people could benefit from the same
approach
but lack the benefit of an enlightening diagnosis
to help them on their way) –
I cannot afford to waste energy on people
and their opinions
except those of a very select few individuals
who have proven themselves worthy of my
attention.

So I have a distinct fear of writing.
Because I have little energy for talking
and therefore little experience
in expressing my thoughts.
Because I have no education besides
programming, where you only learn
to communicate with a computer
rather than with people.
Because I have no conception of what other people might think
when they read what I write
and only vague ideas about
what other people think at all.

But perhaps that is predominantly a good thing.
I have no conception of the ridiculous prejudice
I see other people express,
or of ingrained social practices
that are outright meaningless,
or of wasting my time talking to people I don’t know
of things which I have no knowledge of
just to pass my time,
or of passing off my limited knowledge
of anything
as an absolute truth
to anyone –
on the other hand I have a crippling fear
of other people misreading me
as if the latter was the case
and no way of knowing whether or not there is a risk
that they might do so.

Above all I have a crippling fear
of being talked down to
and being talked over
because that’s comprised 90%
of all my social encounters
so far.

And so I write instead of talking
since I don’t have a voice that anybody can hear anyway
and chastise myself all the while
for not standing up, screaming,
even though I know it wouldn’t solve anything at all
if I did.

I wonder if I am
the only thinking person in the world –
or if perhaps
the world itself consists of nothing but a thought –
I wonder if
these people passing me with endless words
are capable of thoughts
that aren’t stray or passing –
I wonder if the act of talking
doesn’t dim the mind eventually,
if all the noise obstructs the thoughts
that might expand one’s understanding of the world –
I wonder if
other people were to remain quiet
how much would they get to think?
How likely is it that they would
begin to write?

There… there…
no, I failed to grasp it again
but I was close this time…
That word just keeps eluding me…
I have it… I have had it… I had it…
It’s gone…
I speak the things out loud
inside my head
I would have liked to have said
out loud
but even then that word
eludes me…
What was it now again?

I lack that word to describe myself
and what I am…
I have a handful of clichés
and even they don’t even
approximate
what I am…
What am I?
Something indescribable
apparently…

I am a finger hovering over a keyboard for a
missing key…

I am a note lingering in the air after the music has ended…
I am the anticipation before the music has started to play…

I am a synthesis – but of what? Of past and
future making present? Of art and technology making a future I’m not sure I even wish to live in? But would I rather live in the past?

Where in the world do I belong? In the physical world where I am technically situated I might as well not exist, but I cannot really exist in the
virtual world I inhabit. My words come out as nothing but the clatter of a keyboard. As if I was only speaking to myself. I look up and around and think that I might as well be.

But I chose this for myself didn’t I? How can I complain that I am lonely and that nobody understands me when I chose this? I had alternatives. They were worse. I chose this. I chose the
keyboard. I chose the clatter. I chose the silence. Because the price of speaking is so damn high.
I chose the computer over the people. Because the computer is logical and follows instructions. It understands the code I write. Humans cannot be relied upon to understand the words I say. They do not always. They do not – mostly. But the
computer I can talk to. And it doesn’t suddenly decide that it would rather have its software
written by someone more attractive or less needy or less socially awkward or less quiet. It just
accepts me. It’s just there when I need it. And I never have to struggle to express myself to it like I have to when around people.
That was my choice. But it was never an easy one.

But maybe it doesn’t all have to be as black and white as I have made it out to be. Maybe I can combine everything. Maybe I can speak to people through the computer. For lack of better options. And maybe they would actually hear me.

If I lack words I must make them. I must re-program the language to fit me if it doesn’t. And it doesn’t. I must reshape my language in my own image and hope that somebody will understand what I mean anyway.

SInce I wrote my first line of code I have been torn between writing and programming. Torn between the code and the fiction. Felt that if I spent more time on one, the other would suffer. Desperately tried to balance them out, and felt exhausted and confused at the end of the day because I wanted to do both but just didn’t have enough hours in the day.
But in reality, that was a meaningless confusion. Staring myself blind at a distinction that doesn’t really exist, or need to exist.
What I initially failed to realize, is that programming is also very creative. And the process behind writing a program and – say – a poem, is actually very similar.

When hearing that I write poetry, most people immediate degrade it to a “hobby”, or ask whether I have been published, or whether I am studying literature.

Why instead not ask what I write? Why I write? What I get out of writing? Whether writing has enriched my life? Whether I feel that I get something out of writing that no other thing on Earth could give me – money included?

Why not rather ask whether I am writing because I like writing, instead of immediately assuming that I write to be published?

I set myself up to the task of writing this essay in 2013 after spending two days editing my earliest poems and being deeply disappointed by them. I thought them genius when I wrote them (which is also why I published them of course), but in 2013 I found most of them just barely passable. That was when I realized that I needed to assess how I have developed as a poet over the years in order to determine what I have actually gotten out of the process of writing. I returned and re-wrote this essay in 2017 to include the “conclusion” that was my newer works and the return to writing in my own language rather than English.

I am basically not as imaginative as people might think when reading my fiction. I do not “invent” fiction – I only fictionalize reality.

I think the biggest barrier I had to overcome when I started writing prose fiction rather than pure poetry, was that I had the ideal of thinking up fiction, which was something I never succeeded at. It wasn’t till I realized that the best pieces of fiction ever written are based on real events (however fictionally coated afterwards) that I actually managed to write anything worthwhile. My short stories have come into being based on this principle: Real events, coated with fiction to a smaller or larger extent depending on their individual nature.

Confusion is a fact of life, and when my mind forgets,
my dreams continue to remind me of the life I had;
I see you, see your smile again, and hear your voice again,
I feel you touch me, feel your skin. I love you yet again.

And when I went to sleep last night I was supposed to dream
but I gained no such thing; I went to work within my sleep;
I wrote and wrote about you and I meant each word I wrote,
but everything was washed away the moment I awoke.

I know I love you, even though I don’t know how or why;
I can’t remember if I know; forget it when I try –
I’d like to just erase you, to move on and to forget,
but every time I sleep you still return to fill my head.

I am tired of searching
for something I’m not sure to find.
I am tired of writing
words I am not sure I even understand.
I am tired of editing
poems written years ago and try to make amends
for visions I once had
that I barely remember, and much less comprehend.

I am tired of attempting
to believe that my writings have meaning –
but what else is worth believing in?
I’d drop the pen and do something better,
more meaningful and worthwhile
if I thought that it existed – I am dreaming
of a contrubution of some sorts
beyond writing.
But I fail at visualizing
what they might entail
when everything besides my words
seem out of sorts.

I am tired of searching
for meaning that I’m certain I will never find,
I am tired of dreaming

Think of my prose as rough-edged stone,
ugly and plain to see.
But think, however, it contains
the jewel of my poetry.
When seeing them, you shouldn’t think
that one so ugly could contain
another of such beauty;
but the substance is the same.

I keep you in a tower in my head,
I know you’re always there, that I can get
advice from you whenever needed…

All I need to do is climb the stair,
the winding stair up to your lair
and end up in the library…

The place where you first handed me my fate;
a book with empty pages and a pen…
And told me to write…

Sometimes I walk the stair and feel
the walls are closing in,
but I always see the light at the other end,
above my head you light the candle
that I walk towards
ever upwards, upwards, up to you…
Up where the candles burn.